It's New Orleans: Happy Hour

This is the 5th year of the New Orleans Horror Film Fest. The guy who has to watch 600 unreleased horror movies and decide on 47 that are good enough to screen at the festival is known in some circles as Balls Cobain. You might be surprised to learn that those circles are primarily Balls s family. To the rest of us he s Chuck Lucia and when he s not blowing sh t up for a living he s Director of the horror film fest which is the last weekend of September.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you only had 10 questions to ask your favorite artist visual or musical what would your questions be That s the task photographer Zach Smith set himself when he embarked on a project to document the work of some seminal Louisiana artists. The result is My Louisiana Muse, an exhibition and online testament to both the artists and Zach s fascinating technique called bromoil which combines elements of photography and painting. Julia Sevin knows a thing or two about visual arts as well she s the local President of the 500,000 or 27,000 strong depending if you count everybody or just the folks who pay up members of the AIGA, the international design organization that is holding its annual get together in New Orleans. Check the website for a bunch of cool free parties and events. And check out Julia s story about Donna Reed s niece, Groucho Marx s daughter and Mia Farrow s nieces. Talking of the Marx family, things get off to a rocky start with Jeremy Marx, the singer and guitar player from the band Gandhi Castl

Grant s out this week, so we re going to give you the Boyfriend experience. That s right, the fabulous Boyfriend is sitting in the big chair to talk about sex, cats, and goose fat.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We hear a lot about how New Orleans has changed since Katrina and how people from outside are changing the city, not always for the better. But if you want to know how it really is, from the inside, this conversation is it. NOLA musicians NOLA FAM Que Hefner aka Quentin Coleman and Mani aka Romani Cole talk about how the new residents who have moved into New Orleans neighborhoods where there are bars are shutting down the music and forcing musicians themselves included out of work. They used to support themselves as full time musicians, now there s not enough work and they re working day jobs. When you listen to how these guys have truly given everything to be musicians including for a time post Katrina being forced to live in Shreveport where they reportedly drink milk out of bags you ll get a first hand, bitter free, real NOLA feel of what it s like to be the victim of change. Rosy Wilson knows a thing or two about the pressures of the music biz. She started out at the age of 19 founding the seminal Rosy s

Grant s away this week hunting the most dangerous game, man. But don t worry because we have the fabulous Anna Whitlow sitting in his place with rosSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This conversation starts off very polite and normal. For about 2 minutes. Till the discussion about Vic Granata s cap with a cock on it. Vic wonders why everyone is interested in his cock hat and not his Bettie Page T shirt.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you have a real job Because we don t anymore. Well Shaun Johnson does, sort of, he works for WRHB, which is radio fro the blind. WRBH reads books, papers, as well as offers other content to for the blind. But Shaun also loves eating and going to the gym in equal parts, as well as hosting his radio show, Audio Portraits, were he interviews interesting and creative people from around New Orleans, it s almost like a professional version of Happy Hour.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Walking into a bar in rural Mississippi can be an unnerving experience. But Jon Hatchett got a good song out of it. Andrew Duhon s inspiration for a new song written just minutes before he played it was inspired a bucket. It s about a man who thinks he has it all, described in the chorus as a "5 Gallon Captaincy." Jon Hatchett picks up the challenge and debuts a song he also wrote just today, about the upside of drinking heavily, which turns out to a potential country classic called You Can t Regret What You Can t Remember. Joe Toman is two thirds through a 52 week challenge of trying to remember what happened in bar last night. The results of his weekly bar room adventures with local drinkers is enshrined in a weekly column and soon to be collected as a book. Meghan Harwell met her husband in high school, not in rural Louisiana but in rural Louisiana. But they didn t start dating till they ran into each other on Canal Street in New Orleans 4 years ago. Back in high school he didn t but now he looks like Jeff

If you ve ever gotten a friend request on Facebook or an email from someone whose photo is a sexy looking woman who says she s from Ghana and you wonder exactly what the scam could be, Kimya Holmes can tell you first hand. Well, technically second hand since it was her now ex husband who got scammed by someone he believed but she didn t was a woman, in Ghana, with whom he believed he was having some sort of an affair. Kimya is not exactly the kind of woman to whom you want to try and explain away your internet transgressions she s a trial attorney who defends people headed for death row. Murray Roth is an attorney too, an entertainment attorney specializing in film financing tax credits. A few years back he decided to quit spending every waking hour pulling together cash for independent film producers so they can have all the fun of making movies and hanging out with stars like Eric Roberts and crossed over to the dark side. Now Murray is financing and producing his own movies through his production company,

Abby Mannix comes from a tough family. Her uncle wrote for Seinfeld, including "The Opposite" episode where George ends up getting his job with The Yankees, but he the family still regarded him as a failure. And Laurie Cohen was a member of a Suicide Gang not Isis and was a freakin bitch but that s another story.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Since Grant s busy working on the Donald Trump s presidential campaign, we ve got our old friend and Voodoo mastermind, Sig, to fill in for this week s Happy Hour. But Sig isn t completely amongst strangers, he s good friends with guest Anna Whitlow.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Andy King doesn t like to describe his job as "hacking up children." As an orthopedic surgeon and the pardon the pun head of the spine unit at Children s Hospital in New Orleans, Andy is good naturedly circumspect about how he describes using mechanical instruments on kids backs. As a New Zealander, he s a lot less sensitive to his description of Australians. Bridget Kelly is a 7th generation New Orleanian whose son, August, is an 8th generation New Orleanian, and whose husband Aaron not Erin was faking buying a baguette at the Cresecnt City Farmers Market when Bridget met him for the first time after seeing him across a restaurant the night before while discussing Mork n Mindy s offsrpring and declaring she was going to marry him. Even in a small town of bizarre goings on and on a cocktail drinking show that is, frankly, a gathering ground for crazy stories this romantic tale stands out. So much so that Andrew Duhon is contemplating a cross cultural yoga centric reconnaissance of the Uptown Farmers Market on

If you re a hooker visiting New Orleans, things go wrong, and you help, Julie Tizzard is the one call that s all attorney you re looking for. She s also one call that s all at the sperm bank where she s a cheap date knocked up on the first turkey basting You know it s a good party when somebody spills a drink over the best dressed person in the room. John Michael Early and Mario Palmisano from Flowtribe stop by after their respective massage and throat wrecking recording session and John Michael manages to spill Mario s wine all over Julie s dress. On the upside,See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With a Cajun French name like Sophie Lafayette, you might be surprised that not only is Sophie not French, or Cajun, she lives in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. What is even more intriguing is that Sophie is an avid New Orleans lover and regular Happy Hour listener, but has never been to New Orleans. On this show we talk to Sophie in Dar es Salaam and with the power vested in us by a collective 9 cocktails appoint her New Orleans ambassador to East Africa. Normally, the invesitiure of an international ambassador with her duties would be the high point of a show, but on this Happy Hour it shares the limelight with the life and death story of singer, comedian, intellectual, P H Fred. Mere hours before the show, an MRI turned up aSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

By the end of this show you ll be able to say "Hi, how are you " in Swahili, French, and Manadarin. This frst ever tri lingual Happy Hour is not recommended listening if you are easily intimidated by the awesome achievements and amazing life experiences of others. If, however, you find sharing of diverse tales over cocktails enlightening and you love the discovery that we have more in common than you might at first glance imagine, meet Rosemary, Holly, and Ralph.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We all write ourselves reminders. On a scrap of paper, on our phone, some of us write on our hands. Professor T R Johnson is the director of the Writing Program at Tulane University. It s mildly surprising to find out at the beginning of this conversation that TR writes on his hand. If you can stick it out till the end of this show when TR s phone alerts him of his next reminder, it s so bizarre, so entirely unexpected, and yet so perfectly linked to everything that has gone before, you ll think we wrote and planned this whole show.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sheba Turk steps our from in front of the camera to sit behind a microphone and play guitar like Adele. Sheba has always wanted to play guitar and today s the day her dream comes true. With assistance from Stephen Turner and Jonathan Pretus from The Breton Sound, Sheba belts our her favorite Adele song. And talks about eating dinner for breakfast, being on air at WWLTV for 5 hours straight, and sockbuns. The boys from the Breton Sound take a break from giving live guitar lessons to play a song off their new EP Don t Be Afraid of Rock n Roll, and to swing from smoking to high voltage chemical plants. Roger Wilson was a star of the big screen in Porky s, a singing TV star in 7 Brides For 7 Brothers, the creator of Louisiana s Broadway South that reuvenated Canal Street, and can seemingly do anything he puts his mind to. Even explain tax credits to a bunch of folks with cocktails. Andrew Duhon dips into his country music bag for a celebration of certain failure and heartbreak. All photos on this page were taken

Frank Scurlock is a member of one of New Orleans' first families. Like the Marsallises the first family of music and the Brennans the first family of restaurants the Scurlocks are New Orleans first family of fun. Frank s father, John, invented the Space Walk, perhaps better known as the bouncy castle. Frank has a bounced a long way out of the family business. He leaves his kids to run the day to day infatable biz while he concentrates on far grander visions. Like Transformation Village a theme park the size and scope of Disney World he s developing in New Orleans East, a zipline running from the top of the World Trade Center to the West Bank, and there s more Wait till you hear how kids are going to spend time inside inflatable classrooms shaped like NASA s space shuttle to get their "Eduflation." Catrina Cerny loves beer so much she bought a backpack of it to Happy Hour, which by the way is in a bar. Catrina unpacks her backpack of Chicago beers on this show. She loves New Orleans so much she moved here twic

Burlesque performer [Cherry Brown][link1] is a part-time pantie wrangler, photographer [Marc Pagani][link2] gets choppered out of Mt Everest, Ukulelist (yes! it's a word!) [Debbie Davis][link3] advises on correct levels of marijuana intake (where legal only) and [Eric Heigle][link4] plans an assault on a Hollywod princess.[link1]: http://www.misscherrybrown.com/[link2]: http://paganiphoto.com/[link3]: http://www.debbiedavismusic.com/[link4]: http://www.bloodysundaysessions.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tommy Boudreaux spends a good part of his day giving spiritual and emotional support to the folks whose loved one s remains he s cleaning off the walls after they were murdered or blew their brains out with a handgun. Today after work at Clean Scene, Tommy goes to have a quiet reflective drink, and what does he find A bunch of folks at Wayfare with a thousand questions about blood, brains, the smell of death, and a couple of drinks later he s flashing back to when he was the drum major in the O Perry Walker band and his flirtation with acting in porno films. Debbie Davis is up for producing a porno movie for Tommy to star in. Right now Debbie has some time on her hands and plenty of good connections for porno production courtesy of her vast house music family network that stretches around the world. It all startedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.